Spotify?

[matthias]

What do you think about this article?

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-ugl ... is-finally

Is it true?

[springwood64]

https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the ... musicians/

This is the more detailed article it references.

This is the author: https://lizpelly.info/mobile

Looks credible.

[springwood64]

It's not in my interest to help fund a system that slowly squeezes out independent original artists in favour of AI generated music.

I value Spotify as a source of new music discovery, and for me that means real artists. It's also important to me that streaming supports a healthy music industry that benefits artists and helps them thrive.

I'll follow this story to see if Spotify closes their fake music program.

Maybe they will. If the real music disappeared under a gradually thickening fog of fake music, Spotify would likely go the same way as other previously dominant services, like Yahoo and Myspace.

Would I ditch Spotify for a poorer sounding alternative service? Yes, if I am not happy with their ethics and behaviour.

Obviously Spotify won't be influenced by a handful of customers switching to their (relatively tiny) competition, but they might consider the brand damage of this behaviour, eventually.

[TMV]

I got some fake playlists with elevator music added but guessed that someone had hacked my account. Changed PW and it didn't come back.

[John]

I don’t think much of it and will continue greatly enjoying my Spotify music!

[lejonklou]

This is interesting stuff and I have many thoughts around it. One is that I nearly always choose what I want to listen to (usually whole albums or a particular artist, composer or conductor) and I never listen to other playlists than my own. And I never use Shuffle, as it doesn’t work properly - some songs are played more often than others, so I find it useless.

When I concentrate on work I often have no music on, but occasionally play classical or jazz albums. Never noticed any fake artists except once, which happened when Radio took over (Radio is when Spotify keeps playing tracks that are similar to my previous choice of artist or playlist). It was a collection of similar songs that sounded like they were made by the same artist, but all labeled with different artist names and none of them had any background info. Didn’t sound AI generated, so perhaps one of those music factory productions. I found it silly and turned it off.

I used to love many of the tracks that Radio came up with and occasionally still do, but I feel that Radio has gotten worse these last years. I used to often be pleasantly surprised and frequently push the Like button, to later check the artist out more deeply. But Radio has started playing familiar tracks from my Liked Songs more often (is there a way to turn this off?) and the pleasant surprises have become less frequent. This is disappointing and has made me use Radio less frequently. Instead I pick another album to listen to.

I couldn’t care less about silly playlists for certain moods. Hence I don’t contribute to or have to suffer the AI or factory made muzak. I am more concerned about the artists I choose to listen to not being paid properly.

[Arjen]

I think the article not so much about ones own personal experience, but more about the system and algorithms behind it. When you are critical and really into music, orchestra’s, bands, singers etc. And you can compare it with your vinyl or cd collection you may identify what is real or what is fake. People who are more lazy, easy, with listening (a bigger mass I’m afraid) are probably more more susceptible to fake setlists and so a better revenue source for a streaming company. If my supposition and conclusion is correct than the likes of Spotify might change their strategy and policy in the future years of desinformation just because of the stockholders and change their focus away from real musicians and real music. Where Spotify first started to give you the opportunity to discover new music, no it changes in a medium to generate profit and more profit just to make you as a consumer addicted to them app I’m afraid. Vinyl, CD, radio stations and concerts/gigs are left then for the (niche)market of the real music lover.
I wish I‘m wrong boys, but Spotify is part of Big Tech ruling the world by subordinating us as addicted consumers. But there’s hope, analog-wise real music en real music lovers can survive in this dark age of monopolized Big Tech.

[matthias]

Meanwhile I checked my Spotify playlists. There are very few left, these seem to be safe and sound. One is from a record label (ECM) with no fakes for sure. I don't use either "Made for" playlists or "Radio" playlists or any other playlist recommendations by Spotify. I will follow this story.

[ThomasOK]

I didn't read the articles but have heard of AI generated music becoming more common. I do often put on a playlist like a mellow jazz one to play for my dog Lily when I am out and about. One song that I rather liked, For Joey, came up from time to time so I checked it out and found that it was supposed to be from the Thames Quartet. But when I tried to find out more about them all I could find was a few tracks on a few of the music services (YouTube, Apple, Amazon, Spotify) but nothing coming up in general or on places like wikipedia. I also noticed that the artwork was very generic looking graphic designs.

I just checked again and Spotify now has an information page on them and about a dozen tracks (still with the generic artwork). However, the biography lists them as a string quartet making waves in classical music, but the tracks I have heard from them are jazz with a trumpet in the lead (and shown on pretty much all the artwork for the different tracks), piano, bass and drums! Hardly a classical string quartet. Interestingly I just found another place on Spotify that said they were a Jazz Quartet featuring Freddie Gavita on trumpet playing music composed by pianist Alex Maydew. Both of them seem to exist although there is no mention of the Thames Quartet on Alex's web page, nor of a collaboration with Freddie. Likewise no mention of the group nor Alex on Freddie's page. So my guess is that these are just tracks they have recorded under contract to Spotify or similar to get a bit of cash. Apparently not AI but another way the streamers increase their profit.

This wandered a bit from the original topic as I started looking them up while I was writing and found the additional information (and misinformation). But another side of how streaming companies work.

[Arjen]

After reading an article in a Dutch newspaper, reviewing Eurosonic in Groningen and festival discussion about spotify diluting playlists by fake filler music, I more closely read the Liz Pelly article.
It doesn’t surprise me that money drive tech uses real musicians only in their start up phase to dominate music industry in order to look for strategies to rise their revenues and profits by wretching naive listeners by mixing playlists with anonymous kinda programmed musicians and AI. At the start it was probably a nice platform to search for new music or a help for interesting customized playlists.
But now it tend to margine real musicians and their incomes, no it tends to ignore real music lovers like you on this platform I’m kinda shocked that only a few might be worried and the discussion here has already stopped. I may cite John Cale Fear is Man’s Best Friend for a wake up call to save the music from this persistent money-grubber before real authentic music will die in darkness.

[lejonklou]

Frankly I'm not that worried about this development.

And I can really understand the financial incentives at play here. The streaming service charges you a monthly fee, so they know exactly how much they're going to get from you. They pay the owner of the music each time a track is played, so they don't know how much they're going to pay. It depends on how often the music is played and what the deal is for each track.

Now imagine that more and more of the customers just let the music keep streaming, day and night, all year long. A lot of the time it may be background noise, the volume could be turned down to zero or there might not be anyone around. Well, if the customer doesn't notice or care what's being played, there's a very strong incentive to create a range of "curated playlists" where you sneak in 10% of content that you don't need to pay for. That's a 10% saving in expenses right there. And the playlists might be exactly what these customers are looking for.

I don't use streaming services this way. But today at the lab I played a cool jazzy tune and then started 'Radio' on that particular song. I wanted to find out whether some similar sounding tune from a completely unknown band would turn up. Then I'd catch them in their evil deeds and report it here.

A lot of laid back jazzy tunes were played and several times I thought Come on, this can't possibly be a real band! So I woke up the screen of the iPad, checked the artist and googled the name. A handful of times there wasn't even any album cover, which made it seem even more suspicious. But to my surprise, the artists I googled were all real. So and so is a jazz guitarist living in California and has played in these bands and released these records. Huh! Some of it was just too drowsy for my ears, so after a couple of hours I gave up.

I won't be playing any of the playlists, because I know the factory made stuff can be found there. I was just trying to catch the Radio feature serving me any of this.

[Arjen]

Fredrik, you says you’re not worried about what this development of bigtech can bring in the future. But isn’t it this kind of revenue driven attitude you should worried about. If streamingservices sneak in 10% anonymous low cost content in their playlists an nobody worries they will expanding to let’s say 20% or more and margin real authentic music. Should their first motive not be just music and revenue then the result?
If you yourself would sneak a 10% or more low cost low quality devices in your gear, would you, us and I here on the platform be happy with the musical results? i’m happy your attitude is different, music and musicality prevail and driven.

[lejonklou]

I wasn’t talking about big tech in general, just that I’m not worried about this particular development.

Suppose they make a playlist with 100% AI-made ”music” and call it ’Relaxing moments’. Where’s the harm in that? I am not interested, but there might be those who are. Likely the same kind of people who would otherwise play crap background muzak. Is it important that we protect the previously human makers of crap background muzak?

My point here is that we choose what we want to listen to. If the streaming services would start choosing for us, I wouldn’t use them.

Now if AI would start making ”music” that we think is better than our favourite human artists, then we have a different problem. But then it’s not about the streaming services. Regardless of medium, you’d be tempted to buy that AI ”artist” on vinyl as well.

Would I save 10% in component costs if I got the same or better result? Yes! Would I do it if I got a worse result? No. That’s because my main goal is to make machines that give the listener the strongest musical experiences. I’m pretty certain the streaming services’ main goal is to make money.